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> 15/ It is incredibly clear that everyone at Apple puts strategy requirements above anything “local”. When you wonder why there isn’t more new in Notes or why

by baxtr 6y ago

> 15/ It is incredibly clear that everyone at Apple puts strategy requirements above anything “local”. When you wonder why there isn’t more new in Notes or why Mail is missing stuff it’s because supporting a multi-year strategy trumps individual teams and that’s a good thing. I don’t know anything about internals at Apple but I have been wondering constantly how they manage to be successful over and over again. If I had to bet, I’d say is this. I’ve worked for many companies where the ego of a product or service line boss always trumped overall strategy. It was about them not the company. Somehow Apple has succeeded in damping down this effect (I am sure it’s there but just on different level than in other companies).

chadlavi 6y ago
For a long time the biggest ego in the room was Steve, whose ego was behind the overarching strategy.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- MaysonL 6y ago
  And for someone with that big an ego, a remarkable willingness to change his mind.
  - ladyanita22 6y ago
    He definitely was a clever guy. He had an enormous ego, but he knew when it was wrong (despite him probably never accepting he was wrong in the first place)
  - taneq 6y ago
    It's easy to change your mind when you can just pretend that you'd always thought that, and nobody's game to call you on it.
chongli 6y ago
Somehow Apple has succeeded in damping down this effect I don’t know how Apple is organized internally but if I may be allowed to speculate, I think the way to avoid these ego issues is by moving people around constantly. If you don’t allow any team to establish a “territory” on a particular product, you may be able to get away with it.
- saagarjha 6y ago
  I don’t think those teams have had a major shakeup…
- xixixao 6y ago
  This is not how Apple works, unlike FB or Google people stay on their teams for a long, long time. Based on my knowledge of the company, it's pretty heavily top-down led. That would be my guess on why it's able to execute against its strategy. But I am not sure it's particularly better at it than other tech giants. My guess for the main reason Apple is so successful is its strategy, not their execution of it: Sell expensive top-class products (even if that means being late to market), and establish strongly walled ecosystems between those products.
  - tonyedgecombe 6y ago
    Sell expensive top-class products Yes, I'm guessing margin is everything for Apple. If they can't make 30-40% on a product then they will leave it for someone else.
    - Someone 6y ago
      That strategy didn’t work for manufacturers of workstations. The PC eroded their market from below. Somehow, Apple manages to prevent that from happening.
harpratap 6y ago
I think people over-estimate Apple's success. As a non-American Apple was never really popular until the iPhone came. The Macs never made it to the East, most of the world was dominated by PCs. Even with the iPod, most saw it as Walkman 2.0 rather than a completely new disruptive technology. Here in Japan, where iPhone has the highest market share than any other country on the planet, Macs are a rare sight, Airpods are not as ubiquitous as they are in NY, and I only started seeing Apple watches after they launched a tie-up with Suica.
- no_wizard 6y ago
  I think going from almost bankrupt to a trillion dollar valued company would make Apple an unqualified success though no? No doubt iPhone got them there more than any other product
  - harpratap 6y ago
    Yes, definitely. But the article seems to suggest that Apple has enjoyed continued success for past 3 decades. But in reality they only established themselves with the iPhone. Apple's model already has a proven weakness - Microsoft. Had Microsoft created good Mobile OS around 2008-09 iPhone wouldn't have seen much success IMO. So Apple's success is more of lack of a good competitor more than anything else. High end Android phones + Fast, stable, long term supported OS from Microsoft + Developers would have done the same thing to iPhone that PC did to Macs.
    - landryraccoon 6y ago
      > Had Microsoft created good Mobile OS around 2008-09 iPhone wouldn't have seen much success IMO. It sounds like you're not giving Apple enough credit for good hardware. iOS isn't the reason to get an iPhone, the physical device, the actual phone, is the reason. If Apple allowed people to install Windows Mobile on iPhone, I think I'd still get an iPhone, and maybe would install Windows on it.
      - harpratap 6y ago
noobaccount 6y ago
Pretty much. There’s no big secret. Just a bunch of uncomfortable hard work to not ship junk and get everyone on the same page. It helps that title for product managers is “Vice President.”
an_opabinia 6y ago
There have been lots of product blunders. Maybe as many as Google has. The iPhone subsidizes it all, just like advertising does for Google, or Windows did for Microsoft, etc etc. The crappy keyboard was Johnny Ive’s idea! The world’s best industrial designer has created a completely unaccounted for liability, Apple has been trying to buy back those shitty computers now through trade ins or hopefully waiting people out, because the whole Mac unit is going to go into the red if there’s no plan to minimize, in a defiantly anti-consumer way, mass keyboard recalls. A mote of dust breaks them! The HomePod. Apple Music - but maybe all subscription music services are unsustainable and bad. A $1,000 monitor stand and $700 wheels. Aperture. Feedback Assistant. Xcode. Numbers. Messages. A camera that still doesn’t save to DNG? $3 for 100GB iCloud. The overpriced SSD storage that haunts every user in existence. Batteries that bloat; batteries that are not user replaceable; batteries that are drained when the device is using more power than the boxer adapter provides. Security through obscurity, like FaceID and the Secure Enclave. Lack of security - people’s passwords are so easy to guess, and iCloud contains everything. Apple Maps. Siri. iCloud versions of their productivity apps. Remember CloudKit? These are all from the last decade. As long as the iPhone sells none of it matters.
georgeburdell 6y ago
One downside I can think of is that some ambitious engineers might not like being unable to make their mark on a product with an idea they have. For what it's worth, I've known too many Apple engineers decamp to Google, et al., after they got sick of the top-down management style. Google is, of course, the other extreme where products can essentially be the external manifestation of an engineer's effort to get promoted.

by baxtr 6y ago

chadlavi 6y ago

For a long time the biggest ego in the room was Steve, whose ego was behind the overarching strategy.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
MaysonL 6y ago
And for someone with that big an ego, a remarkable willingness to change his mind.
- ladyanita22 6y ago
  He definitely was a clever guy. He had an enormous ego, but he knew when it was wrong (despite him probably never accepting he was wrong in the first place)
- taneq 6y ago
  It's easy to change your mind when you can just pretend that you'd always thought that, and nobody's game to call you on it.

chongli 6y ago

Somehow Apple has succeeded in damping down this effect I don’t know how Apple is organized internally but if I may be allowed to speculate, I think the way to avoid these ego issues is by moving people around constantly. If you don’t allow any team to establish a “territory” on a particular product, you may be able to get away with it.

saagarjha 6y ago
I don’t think those teams have had a major shakeup…
xixixao 6y ago
This is not how Apple works, unlike FB or Google people stay on their teams for a long, long time. Based on my knowledge of the company, it's pretty heavily top-down led. That would be my guess on why it's able to execute against its strategy. But I am not sure it's particularly better at it than other tech giants. My guess for the main reason Apple is so successful is its strategy, not their execution of it: Sell expensive top-class products (even if that means being late to market), and establish strongly walled ecosystems between those products.
- tonyedgecombe 6y ago
  Sell expensive top-class products Yes, I'm guessing margin is everything for Apple. If they can't make 30-40% on a product then they will leave it for someone else.
  - Someone 6y ago
    That strategy didn’t work for manufacturers of workstations. The PC eroded their market from below. Somehow, Apple manages to prevent that from happening.

harpratap 6y ago

I think people over-estimate Apple's success. As a non-American Apple was never really popular until the iPhone came. The Macs never made it to the East, most of the world was dominated by PCs. Even with the iPod, most saw it as Walkman 2.0 rather than a completely new disruptive technology. Here in Japan, where iPhone has the highest market share than any other country on the planet, Macs are a rare sight, Airpods are not as ubiquitous as they are in NY, and I only started seeing Apple watches after they launched a tie-up with Suica.

no_wizard 6y ago
I think going from almost bankrupt to a trillion dollar valued company would make Apple an unqualified success though no? No doubt iPhone got them there more than any other product
- harpratap 6y ago
  Yes, definitely. But the article seems to suggest that Apple has enjoyed continued success for past 3 decades. But in reality they only established themselves with the iPhone. Apple's model already has a proven weakness - Microsoft. Had Microsoft created good Mobile OS around 2008-09 iPhone wouldn't have seen much success IMO. So Apple's success is more of lack of a good competitor more than anything else. High end Android phones + Fast, stable, long term supported OS from Microsoft + Developers would have done the same thing to iPhone that PC did to Macs.
  - landryraccoon 6y ago
    > Had Microsoft created good Mobile OS around 2008-09 iPhone wouldn't have seen much success IMO. It sounds like you're not giving Apple enough credit for good hardware. iOS isn't the reason to get an iPhone, the physical device, the actual phone, is the reason. If Apple allowed people to install Windows Mobile on iPhone, I think I'd still get an iPhone, and maybe would install Windows on it.
    - harpratap 6y ago

noobaccount 6y ago

Pretty much. There’s no big secret. Just a bunch of uncomfortable hard work to not ship junk and get everyone on the same page. It helps that title for product managers is “Vice President.”

an_opabinia 6y ago

There have been lots of product blunders. Maybe as many as Google has. The iPhone subsidizes it all, just like advertising does for Google, or Windows did for Microsoft, etc etc. The crappy keyboard was Johnny Ive’s idea! The world’s best industrial designer has created a completely unaccounted for liability, Apple has been trying to buy back those shitty computers now through trade ins or hopefully waiting people out, because the whole Mac unit is going to go into the red if there’s no plan to minimize, in a defiantly anti-consumer way, mass keyboard recalls. A mote of dust breaks them! The HomePod. Apple Music - but maybe all subscription music services are unsustainable and bad. A $1,000 monitor stand and $700 wheels. Aperture. Feedback Assistant. Xcode. Numbers. Messages. A camera that still doesn’t save to DNG? $3 for 100GB iCloud. The overpriced SSD storage that haunts every user in existence. Batteries that bloat; batteries that are not user replaceable; batteries that are drained when the device is using more power than the boxer adapter provides. Security through obscurity, like FaceID and the Secure Enclave. Lack of security - people’s passwords are so easy to guess, and iCloud contains everything. Apple Maps. Siri. iCloud versions of their productivity apps. Remember CloudKit? These are all from the last decade. As long as the iPhone sells none of it matters.

georgeburdell 6y ago

One downside I can think of is that some ambitious engineers might not like being unable to make their mark on a product with an idea they have. For what it's worth, I've known too many Apple engineers decamp to Google, et al., after they got sick of the top-down management style. Google is, of course, the other extreme where products can essentially be the external manifestation of an engineer's effort to get promoted.